Rethbo

February 23, 2019

Audio outlines—an awesome study strategy

Put down the eye drops. Get off your rear. Embrace the freedom to study anytime, anywhere. All you need is an ear. Audio outlines help you mitigate exam anxiety and juggle the challenges that life and law school throw at you.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the three main audio outlines companies:

First, look at the stars. AudioLearn lags behind with an average 3.8-star rating. AudioOutlines maintains a more impressive 4.5-star average. But Crushendo has a flawless, 5-star rating.

Second, look at the fans. Though newer than both AudioOutlines and AudioLearn, Crushendo has nearly four times the Facebook likes of AudioOutlines and AudioLearn combined. Popularity doesn't mean everything but it says something.

Now, let's talk efficiency. Everyone knows it's harder to be concise than verbose. Distilling doctrine to its critical parts is not for the faint of heart. While AudioOutlines and AudioLearn take somewhere between three and four hours on average to cover a given subject, Crushendo does it in just an hour.

That all must mean Crushendo is crazy expensive, right? True, one thing the comparison chart doesn't show you is cost. AudioOutlines and AudioLearn both sit in the same ballpark ($20 to $30 per audio outline). Crushendo comes in a touch higher with $37 per audio outline. That said, Crushendo always includes written outlines and visual flashcards to complement your audio.

September 28, 2018

Last night, I watched substantial portions of the Kavanaugh hearing with my eight-year-old son. I didn't plan it that way. Not our typical father-son bonding session. But I was watching everything on my phone in my room when he wandered in, full of curiosity. He first heard Ford's testimony. We had to pause it a few times, so I could explain some terminology that he hasn't had to worry about before. Thankfully, he's mature beyond his years and what followed was a meaningful discussion.

Through the eyes of an eight-year-old

After hearing from Ford. I asked him if he thought she was telling the truth. He quickly agreed. He said the tears gave it away.

Then I showed him portions of Kavanaugh's testimony. I asked him if he thought he was telling the truth. He thought so. But now he was less confident. Kavanaugh had tears, too.

Turns out, tears are not an unbroken trail to truth.

One possibility that we discussed is that they were both telling what they thought was true. Maybe she incorrectly thought Kavanaugh was her attacker when it was someone else. Could she really be 100% sure? Or, maybe Kavanaugh was too drunk to remember the attack. Could he really be 100% sure?

Other possibilities involve more sinister characterizations of either Ford or Kavanaugh. Maybe we're too trusting, too slow to condemn, or just too naive, but my son and I both balked at such dark thoughts.

Our conversation came to no clear resolution. I had a meeting to go to and he had a trip to an indoor playground ahead of him. Not that any amount of discussion could have clearly resolved what exactly happened between Ford and Kavanaugh decades ago, at least based on the current evidence.

Where I'm at

Though our conversation ended last night, an internal dialogue has continued for me much to my to-do list's chagrin. Rather than stew endlessly, I decided to write my thoughts as a form of therapy.

I don't have it all sorted out, but I no longer believe Kavanaugh should become a justice on the Supreme Court.

Three reasons I want someone else

Though I've suspended judgment about whether he actually assaulted Ford, the fact that such an assault is comfortably within the realm of possibility is concerning. He drank too early and he's admitted that he sometimes drank too much. He apparently lacked restraint at parties and did things that he says make him "cringe" now. His high school yearbook and college fraternity memberships suggest that he was possibly as obsessed with sex as he was with alcohol. Ford offered a compelling testimony that Kavanaugh got himself drunk and sexually assaulted her at a party. And she testified without anything to truly gain from the endeavor. Sure, Kavanaugh is a Republican and Ford is a Democrat who has given small (very small, we're talking double-digit donations) to support her party in some way. But all she's really gained by coming forward is death threats, relived trauma, and what must feel like near-suffocating attention.

Even if Kavanaugh did not sexually assault Ford (or anyone else), he does not seem to have come to terms with what appears to be a major and lifelong drinking problem. The way some former classmates at Yale responded to his testimony yesterday gives cause for pause.

There are more credible candidates for the job. And candidates who would be less polarizing. Doubt and polarization are not what our country needs. I urge our President to nominate, and our Senate to vet, a candidate that our children can have confidence in. If you're a staunch Republican, cast aside any "now or never" vibe. If the mid-term election comes first, let it come. Even if that election paints more of the Senate blue. Maintaining the integrity of black robes is that important.

July 03, 2017

During Sunday School today, my teacher asked, “By a show of
hands, who has seen a close friend or family member leave the Church within the
past two years?”

Most hands shot up. A sobering sight.

I’m not writing to discuss how I have personally seen
others’ faith appear to blossom or shrivel in recent years. I’m writing to
share my own story.

A few years ago, I almost abandoned God, Christianity, and
the Mormon church. Here’s why I made the choice to hold on.

It all started my
second semester of law school. Winter. Cold and dark. The middle of an almost
suffocating inversion. If you've never been to Utah during the winter, just
imagine a haze so thick and air quality so poor that you can taste
it.

While my peers were studying
case law, I couldn't pull myself away from the internet. I fixated on my faith. I devoured everything I could find about Christianity and in particular, the Mormon church or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Actually, that's only
half true. I devoured everything negative that I could find.
Searched far and wide, deep and dark.

After several weeks, I asked
my Bishop if I could talk to him. He kindly obliged. I sat alone with him in
his office, door closed.

"I don't know if
I'll be Mormon forever," I told him. In reality, I didn’t know if I could stay any flavor of Christian.

I don't tell you this
to boast. A faith crisis is no badge of honor (nor should it be a badge of
shame). I share it because it happened. It is what it is. And maybe, just
maybe, sharing my story will benefit someone hanging by a thread over a chasm
of despair.

Just how dark did it
get for me?

I think I can describe
it best by twisting a few passages in
The Book of Mormon. The passages describe what happened in the Americas at the time
of Jesus Christ's crucifixion.

Great and terrible
tempest. Terrible thunder, shaking my world as if it were about to divide
asunder. Sharp lightning, never before heard. Core beliefs aflame or sinking to
the depths of the sea. Smooth places became rough for me.

I tossed and turned. I
wept in the shower.

I told my wife the
things that didn't seem to add up in my mind, the roads or connections between
truths that had become broken up.

I told my wife everything. She wept too. But man,
she was a saint.

She'd married me, in
part, because we shared the same core beliefs about God, Jesus, and the purpose
of life. There I was, on the verge of putting an ideological crater between us,
a crater she never bargained for or ever saw coming. Though heartbroken, she listened
as gentle as a lamb. She told me what she believed and why and then gave me the
emotional elbow room that I needed to sort things out. I didn't know much; almost everything was in flux. But I knew she loved me.

The member of the
stake presidency that came to visit me in our home was much like my wife. Kind
and thoughtful. I could feel that he genuinely cared about me and my family.

Amid my doubts, I made
some effort to reach out to God in a way the internet couldn't offer. I read
scripture. I prayed. In fact, I probably prayed more earnestly than I ever had
before.

I don't know that you
need to know the specific truths or untruths that consumed me as I waded through
the internet's dredges. I read a host of accounts from those who'd divorced
their faith. I saw a bit of myself in the stories I read. But only a bit.
Everyone's struggle seemed different.

Yes, there was a
similar tone of bitterness, frustration, and even anger, at times, in many stories that I read. And yes, many seemed similar in that the individuals would
ultimately go their own lonely way, with at least an initial spring in their
step, rejoicing in a perception of newfound "freedom."

But one person would
trumpet a particular discovery, whether true or not, that she or he could not
reconcile with her or his faith. And another would trumpet another. No two shared the same set of concerns. No one shared my exact concerns.

Some of the concerns I
read about were similar to concerns that I'd already had and felt that I'd reconciled. How could someone leave over something like
that? I wondered.

This got me thinking, how confident can I be that my own
concerns, though not yet reconciled for me, are not also reconcilable? In
other words, I began to doubt my doubts.

And that, for me, was
the beginning.

Over the last few
years, I've reflected almost daily on how I almost left and how grateful I am
that I stayed. What’s the most important lesson I learned from it all? I can
best explain by running with a metaphor first introduced to me by a humble Mormon
leader about a year ago.

Parable of the Puzzle

Imagine you're sitting
at a table, building a puzzle. The puzzle's pieces are both big and small, and
almost innumerable. You've been building this puzzle your entire life. Every
time a piece snaps into place, you feel some exhilaration. The puzzle is far
from finished, but from what you can make out, it's going to be
beautiful.

But then you see it. A
hole in the puzzle. There are other holes, of course, but for whatever reason,
this one captured your eye more than the others. This is the piece I will
place next, you say to yourself. So, you start digging. You scan the
pile, making sure every unplaced piece is right side up. You can't seem to find
the right shape. You look at the pieces surrounding the hole. None of the
pieces you're finding seem to be the correct colors. You look under the board,
under the table, under the chair. Where is that piece?

Your search becomes
frantic. Your hands tremble. You look at the puzzle box. Maybe the
puzzle is broken. Maybe it has missing pieces. Curse the company that made this
puzzle!

You begin to question
all the other pieces you'd laid on the table. Was any of this
right? In frustration, you lift the legs on one side of the table and
just as you are about to flip the table and walk away, you see it.

No, it wasn't the
piece you were looking for, but it's a nice piece and you can see where it
should go. You take the piece and place it. Suddenly, you see other pieces that
you can place, pieces that you'd ignored while you were obsessing over that one
hole.

For the first time in
a long while, you step back and look at everything on the table. You still
can't make out the entire picture, but the canvas is coming to life. Somehow,
placing each piece not only fills the canvas, but also fills something inside
you. There's still a healthy heap of pieces to place. So, you decide to stay at the
table.

My Missing
Pieces

For a time, my
concerns, my holes, my gaps, were all I could see.

I felt no gratitude
for the pieces already placed. God had already given me much. Countless
experiences feeling God's love. From testimony meetings to temples, early
morning seminary to late night prayer, quiet groves to mountain peaks. I dare
say I had even experienced miracles. But all of that had faded from view.

I also felt no
appreciation for the other pieces that were ready for my placing. There were
principles, truths, that I'd been taught and understood, but had procrastinated
placing fully in my life. I wanted to demand that God give me something else.
Right then, right there. Fill this gap and this one, or I'm gone. I
ignored the other gaps God was already offering me the pieces for—pieces that I frankly should’ve felt more urgency to place. Pieces that could and would elevate
how I lived my life.

Why Missing Pieces
Make Sense

If you’re Mormon, you
may be able to recite the Articles of Faith. I memorized them growing up. But I
never paid too much attention to number nine, until that humble Mormon leader helped me
see it in a new light. We shouldn’t shake every time we have questions about our faith,
even great and important questions, because “[w]e believe all that God has revealed, all that He does
now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great
and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” Article of Faith 9.

That means even if you were a perfect student of the scriptures
and you'd understood, remembered, and applied everything that every ancient
and modern prophet had ever revealed, you would still have great and important
questions.

If you’re not Mormon, but share our Christian faith, you may remember
what Isaiah said about our limited understanding, “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 (if you have a moment, click the link and read the surrounding verses; they're amazing).

I certainly still have questions. Some of them are great and important
to me. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy peace. Indeed, the “peace of
God . . . passeth all understanding.” Philippians 4:7. As I’ve
tried to give a loving Heavenly Father the benefit of the doubt about which of
my gaps should be filled next and when, rather than force His hand, I have felt
peace beyond my understanding. I no longer shudder at the thought of my questions. But I do
shudder at the thought that I almost gave up on God, Christianity, and
Mormonism because of them. God is good. Really, truly good. If your faith is teetering, hang on a little longer. More light will come.